


The Play's the Thing

by lyryk (s_k)



Category: Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-17
Updated: 2010-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:58:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/pseuds/lyryk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He goes to Marlowe when the taste of Viola is still sharp and salty on his tongue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Play's the Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Queue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queue/gifts).



**Title:** The Play’s the Thing  
**Recipient:** [Queue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Queue/pseuds/Queue)  
**Fandom:** _Shakespeare in Love_  
**Rating:** R  
**Words:** 1,049  
**Characters:** Marlowe/Shakespeare, Shakespeare/Viola de Lesseps  
**Spoilers/Warnings:** None  
**Summary:** He goes to Marlowe when the taste of Viola is still sharp and salty on his tongue.  
**A/N:** Title from ‘Hamlet’. Written for Yuletide 2010. Thanks to the lovely [Heddychaa](http://heddychaa.livejournal.com) for the beta.

*

He goes to Marlowe when the taste of Viola is still sharp and salty on his tongue. They are rivals in this, too: in this game that they play when Will climbs up the trellis to Kit’s window when the moon is bright in the sky, when not many are awake except those unfortunate enough to earn guard duty on cold winter nights, and the sly, silent ones who steal the treasures of others, and the writers who cannot sleep.

It is only in this that they collaborate: in play, in yearning. Will, on all fours like a caged animal, faces the gilded mirror opposite Kit’s bed. The mirror’s frame is yellow metal, so bright and cheap that it could only be a gift from a pleased patron—no doubt a producer whose pockets are heavier thanks to Kit’s successes at the Curtain. Will wants to pace, to struggle, to be broken in, to obey. He trusts.

‘The time of poetry,’ Kit says, holding Will’s gaze in the mirror, crooking a finger inside him, ‘is past, Will. You saw that boy outside the playhouse, torturing the mice? That’s the future of the stage. Blood, Will. Blood and lust and the will to harm, that is what will delight our gentle audiences in the years to come.’

‘Says the writer of the most loved morality play of our time,’ Will snorts, the sound turning into a gasp as Kit’s slippery fingers twist and probe a little further into him at the same time.

‘But aren’t Faustus’s depravities’—Kit’s free hand grips Will’s hair, forcing his head up—‘well worth any punishment?’

‘The humour is a bit too bawdy, since you asked.’ His voice remains almost-steady even as his back arches helplessly.

In the mirror, Kit smiles. ‘And what other critique would you have for me, Master Shakespeare?’

‘Your politics,’ Will says through his teeth, his eyes closing as Marlowe uses his grip on his hair to tug him to his knees, ‘are too blatantly obvious. Too much at the surf—’

Kit shuts him up with a kiss. ‘And you are too much in control, William,’ he says when he releases Will’s mouth, his eyes darkly amused. ‘You seek release, and yet you hold yourself back.’

Will wants to respond, but then Kit’s fingers curl lightly around his cock, just holding him, his touch warm and maddeningly light. Kit’s thumb encircles the head very gently, strokes lightly into the slit, smearing wetness. Will turns his face into Kit’s neck, shaking with need, his lips parted against the other man’s sweat-damp skin.

‘Come for me, beautiful boy,’ Kit breathes into his ear, his grip tightening around Will’s cock, playing him like a game that he has mastered. And Will does, unable to disobey, even though he wants this to never stop, never _ever_ : this rough, rhythmic movement of Kit’s fingers inside him, this slow, deliberate sweep of his tongue around Will’s ear.

*

They rehearse desultory scenes late in the evening, when the rest of the actors have gone to the taverns to brawl and to fuck. Will writes roles for Viola that she will never perform for any audience but him. He fashions roles out of the impossibilities of their situation, writing a character who forever wanders the moors with a lamp in hand. Viola roams the stage as though it were spread across miles of land rather than a few feet, a well-timed turn of her ankle giving her feet new direction.

She sometimes launches into one of Marlowe’s famous speeches, laughing at his consternation. ‘Sweet Helen,’ he quotes in response, ‘make me immortal with a kiss.’ He’s only half-jesting as his hand encircles her wrist, for isn’t that what muses do: make one immortal? Her head does that small tilt that means that she agrees, yes, it’s time to play now.

When they hear the sound of approaching footsteps, she extinguishes the flame of her lamp with a quick breath and they wait in the darkness until they are alone again, stilling into place like statues.

Will hears the whispers of movement as she slides to the floor, her dress rustling around her body and spreading out with a soft almost-sigh. He drops to the floor, crawling across to where she is, and lets his hands map her posture so that he can picture her in the dark. She has tucked her feet neatly beneath herself, sitting like a child in the darkness. She guides them both to the floor, her arm around his shoulders, his head cradled against her breasts that they have not yet unbound that night. Her hand guides his fingers beneath the heavy, embroidered folds of her dress.

The pads of his fingers move lightly over her skin, trailing over the small, tight, almost-coarse curls of hair between her legs. He wants to taste her, but her fingers are tangled in his hair, keeping his head pressed to the bodice of her dress. He withdraws his hand briefly to wet his fingertips in his mouth and then returns them to where they were, his strokes feather-light. His fingers dip briefly inside her to gather her wetness and slide out again, moving up, focusing on the small nub of flesh that seems, at times such as these, to be the very centre of her being.

His fingers find an easy, familiar rhythm, the kind that is shared by lovers who know each other’s pleasures. He loves this. He loves the way she pleasures herself against his fingertips, the way her hips move against his body, the way he knows she is about to find her release because her hand reaches up to rumple the hair behind his ear. They exchange no words at all, and even as she turns her head to seek his mouth in blind desperation, driven by the need to come, he is already seeing _his_ Viola in his head: the one born out of silent despair, the one who will be played on this stage by a boy in woman’s clothing, the one who will survive a shipwreck and swim to the surface, the one who will feast on love.


End file.
